


Starving

by bbcatemysoul



Series: 50 Ways to Feed Your Lover [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Blow Jobs, Feeding, Feeding Kink, First Time, Fluff, Hand Feeding, Hand Jobs, Introspection, Light Angst, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Masturbation, Not Season/Series 03 Compliant, Public Hand Jobs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-15
Updated: 2013-08-15
Packaged: 2017-12-23 15:04:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/927900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bbcatemysoul/pseuds/bbcatemysoul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock discovers that he deeply appreciates the lengths John will go to in order to keep him fed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Starving

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I couldn't focus on my next chapter of [A Spirit In 221B](http://archiveofourown.org/works/909013) because bits of this story kept floating around in my head, so I decided to get it out of my system. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming! (And, as ever, feel free to come find/stalk me on [tumblr](http://bbcatemysoul.tumblr.com).)

* * *

 

“You're getting much too thin, Sherlock,” Mrs. Hudson chastised with fond concern as she brought up tea. 

“So?” he demanded scornfully, barely looking up from his (well, John's) laptop where he sat at his desk, but he obediently took a biscuit when she offered one. 

Across the room, John's newspaper closed and folded over, revealing the doctor's stern face glaring from his arm chair. “It would be fine if you were taking in a healthy number of calories and were still this thin. Starving yourself because you think normal bodily function is beneath you, though, is not fine.” 

Sherlock had heard it all before, however- from John, from Mrs. Hudson, from Lestrade, from Mycroft (as if Mycroft knew anything about not eating enough!), and once, even from Molly- and was absorbed in his research again before John had finished venting his discontent. The uneaten half of his biscuit lay forgotten next to the laptop, left to become buried by papers and grow stale, only to be rediscovered when John was overcome with his next fit of organisation. 

It wasn't that Sherlock didn't enjoy a good meal. It was just that, in the grand scheme of things, there were so many things that took priority over eating. 

Cases. 

Experiments. 

Composing music. 

Thinking. 

When he wasn't occupied with those things, though, he was more than willing to sit down and eat. He particularly enjoyed the feeling, when he wrapped up an unusually challenging case, of his mind settling down enough to suddenly become aware of his body's demands, and the subsequent indulgence of savouring a substantial meal before he slipped off into a long, deep sleep. 

It just didn't happen nearly as often as John would like. 

John was always after him about not taking care of himself. John fretted over Sherlock's recklessness, his getting needlessly wounded, his lapses with cigarettes (and occasionally, other things), his lack of proper sleep, and, most frequently, his refusal to eat regularly. 

Of course, Sherlock always let John know, in no uncertain terms, that the fussing was tedious and unnecessary. He did not let John know how much he enjoyed it. 

When John cooked, he always made a plate for Sherlock, even when Sherlock said he wasn't hungry, or was too distracted to acknowledge that he had been asked if he was hungry. Most of the time, the plate sat untouched and the food grew cold as Sherlock walked the halls of his mind palace, or did his research, or stared into his microscope, or stood at the window with his violin. Sometimes, the contents of the plate inadvertently became part of Sherlock's experiments. Eventually, John would clear the plate away, tutting over the waste and Sherlock's health and the vexation of having to clean up after a grown man. 

Even though Sherlock seldom ate what was put before him (or, more accurately, what was put next to whatever intellectually-engrossing thing he had before him), he liked the fact that it was there. That John was there and paying attention to him and looking after him. Sherlock did not at all like it when he would look up from his work to find that many hours had passed and no plate had appeared because John had the nerve to be absent- working at the clinic, perhaps, or on a date, or gone for the weekend, or some other tedious thing that took John away from the flat. 

The feeding began as a result of John's frustration. The case was going on day four, and the bowl of salad perched on the corner of the desk had gone ignored for over an hour while Sherlock lounged in his arm chair. He thought John was coming to take the dish away, but instead, the doctor loaded up the fork with greens and tomato and mushroom and cheese and vinaigrette and thrust it toward Sherlock's lips, and Sherlock was so stunned that he just opened his mouth and took it. John dropped the fork into the bowl and shoved it into Sherlock's hands, and the whole thing had been so unexpected that the detective proceeded to eat half before setting it aside and losing himself in his thoughts again. 

It might have just been the element of surprise that first time; the same trick shouldn't have worked at all the second time. But John was bound to attempt to repeat his success, and the next attempt came in the form of a slice of lemon cake. Sherlock told himself, as John held out the fork, and his lips wrapped around it and pulled the sweet cake into his mouth and he savoured the sugary glaze, that it was because of his damned sweet tooth that he allowed himself to be persuaded to take a bite. He resolutely refused, however, to take the plate when John shoved it toward him. Curling his fingers around the edge of his desk so that John couldn't coax him into holding the fork, Sherlock stared at his (well, John's) laptop and forced himself to resume reading the article on hair follicles that was displayed on the screen. A moment later, though, he felt the moist crumbs of another bite of cake pressing gently against his bottom lip, and his treacherous mouth opened as if it had a mind of its own and welcomed the second bite. And the third. And another and another until John gave a self-satisfied chuckle and walked away with the empty plate. Sherlock unclenched his trembling fingers from the edge of his desk and realised he had read the same sentence six times in a row. 

It became a sort of ritual, when John thought Sherlock had gone too long without eating, when a case had gone longer than two days and there was a lull in the action that allowed them to return to the flat, that while Sherlock examined crime scene photos or scoured news reports, John would cook something up and then appear at the detective's side with a full plate. And Sherlock, without looking up from whatever he was doing, would accept every bite John offered him, until the plate was clean. If Sherlock began to feel a flutter of anticipation in his gut at the sounds of John rattling around in the kitchen, he certainly wasn't going to admit it. 

And then the ritual became a habit. John would make food and if Sherlock was preoccupied and didn't eat his portion, even if he had eaten earlier in the day, the doctor would finish his own meal and then wordlessly take up Sherlock's plate and fork and begin feeding him. 

As ever, boredom and curiosity were Sherlock's undoing. There was no case on, and there were no pressing experiments in progress, and Sherlock had managed to go along with the status quo for weeks. There was absolutely no excuse why he shouldn't feed himself, but he could only restrain himself from testing the boundaries for so long. John was in the kitchen, cooking up something for breakfast, and the sound of the pan on the stove and the smell of eggs cooking made Sherlock squirm in his arm chair. In short order, John appeared in the sitting room, carrying two plates heaped with scrambled eggs and a couple of slices of toast with... grape? No, blackberry jam. 

Sherlock accepted his plate and lowered it to his pyjama-clad lap as John sank into the arm chair across from him and tucked into his food. Under normal circumstances, Sherlock was fully involved in something else at this stage of the game, and didn't have attention to spare for watching John eat. This time, though, there was nothing to stop him from cataloguing the efficient way John worked his way around the plate, or the way his jaw worked as he chewed, or the way his eyebrows subtly lifted in simple pleasure at the flavour of the jam. The doctor was halfway through his eggs before he looked up, meeting Sherlock's inquisitive gaze before glancing down at the detective's untouched plate and then back up to meet his eyes again. The stare held for several seconds, and then John returned his attention to his food, methodically finishing off his breakfast. 

Taking a deep, slow breath, John set his empty plate aside and rose from his chair. Sherlock felt his own pulse trip a bit faster, and he schooled his face to calmness as he rested his hands lightly on the arms of his chair, willing them not to shake. John was before him, taking up the plate from Sherlock's knees and scooping up a forkful of eggs. Sherlock tasted black pepper on his tongue as he chewed and swallowed, his eyes fixed on John's hand holding the fork as it dipped into the food, then lifted to Sherlock's mouth. And then, after the eggs, came the toast, and Sherlock realised that John had never fed him something that didn't require a fork before. He bit into the toast, then licked crumbs and a wayward drop of sweet blackberry jam from his lips, and he considered what John's fingertips might taste like as they pushed the final bite into his mouth. 

Unfortunately, that seemed to be where John drew the line, for when Sherlock had eaten all but the corner of toast that John was holding onto, the doctor dropped the remnant onto the plate and proceeded to the second piece. When he was finished, Sherlock sighed and sank back against his chair as John took the plate away, empty but for the two uneaten corners of toast. He noticed that his pyjamas felt a bit snug in the front, and drew his dressing gown around himself. At least John wasn't very observant most of the time. 

And just like that, Sherlock was eating two meals a day, and sometimes more. John wouldn't feed him in public, but when they were at home, and no one was around, John would eat his own meal, and then refill his own plate and feed it to Sherlock. The first time Sherlock took a bite off the fork John had just used for his own dinner, he had to bite back a moan as he imagined that he could taste some minuscule remnant of John on the tines, just under the stronger flavour of grilled halibut mingling with lemon, basil, and garlic. 

Once he was eating regularly, it was only a matter of time before Sherlock noticed that the buttons of his tight shirts strained across his torso more than usual. And really, his tailored suits had never left much breathing room and now were becoming uncomfortably snug. And never mind the button that managed to pop off one of his suit jackets in the middle of a chase down the back alleys of London. He looked at himself in the mirror and thought that maybe John had been right, after all, and he had been too thin before, because he was certainly still lean enough. He paid a visit to his tailor and charged several new suits to Mycroft's credit card. 

Mrs. Hudson happily pointed out that she was glad to see Sherlock finally putting some meat on his bones. Molly looked him over at the lab one day, and, stammering at him through one of her timid smiles, told him that he had a healthier colour in his face these days. Lestrade clapped him on the back at a crime scene and said it was nice to feel like he didn't have to worry any more, since Sherlock was finally taking better care of himself. Mycroft must have noticed, too, but remained blissfully silent on the matter, so Sherlock could only assume he was afraid of rocking the boat and causing his younger brother to resume starving himself in a fit of petulant rebellion (a ridiculous idea, but Mycroft always did have a drastically over-inflated concept of his own influence). 

Sherlock was surprised to find that he enjoyed the praise. He generally did enjoy being praised, but primarily for his intellect; he had never been especially interested in what people thought of his physique. But this was different. In this, they were really praising John's handiwork; they were admiring the result of the lengths to which John would go to take care of him, and every time it happened, John's eyes would glow with pride and he would grin smugly, and Sherlock would feel a warm flush of pleasure creeping up over the back of his own neck. 

It was a blueberry muffin that changed things again. Sherlock was sprawled across the length of the sofa, his feet thrown across John's knees and making it very difficult for John to balance his laptop on his thighs. Not that John was accomplishing much on his laptop, anyway; he was more intent upon peeling back the paper baking cup from the rather large blueberry muffin in his hands. Slowly, deliberately, he broke the muffin in half, and setting one half carefully aside, leaving it nestled inside the paper and balanced on the arm of the sofa, John proceeded to lean back and lazily enjoy the other half. Unconsciously, Sherlock licked his lips as he watched John's tongue flick out to capture a few wayward crumbs, and his gaze lingered on the flexing of John's right masseter as he chewed. Something let out a breathy squeak, and John flicked his eyes toward Sherlock. It took Sherlock a few seconds to realise that the squeak had come from his own parted lips as he watched John swallow. He felt his face flush in embarrassment, and he tore his eyes away from John and forced himself to focus on the ceiling, steady his breathing, and will away the beginnings of an erection lurking in his trousers. 

For all of four and a half minutes, he thought it might work. And then he heard John clear his throat, and when Sherlock dropped his gaze back down, he saw that John had moved on to the other half of the muffin, and had broken a bite-sized piece off and was holding it out to Sherlock. As if something else had taken control of his body, Sherlock pushed himself up onto his elbows in slow motion and stretched his neck forward until his lips met John's fingertips. And oh, yes, yes, there it was, the roughness of the callouses on John's fingertips contrasting with the moist, crumbling texture of the muffin against his lips, and the salty tang of John's skin mingling with sweet blueberry on his tongue. Sherlock felt his breath hitch and grow erratic, and noted that his skin felt much too hot, and his trousers felt much too tight, and his hands were shaking and his lips were trembling, and he knew that even John could not fail to notice all of that. 

As soon as he swallowed the final bite, Sherlock pushed himself up off of the sofa and stumbled to his bedroom on unsteady legs, slamming the door shut behind him before peeling his clothes off of his flushed skin and throwing himself across the bed to rut against the mattress and groan John's name into the pillows. When he emerged some time later, dressed and composed, John had already left for a shift at the clinic, and Sherlock spent the day engrossed in an experiment at the kitchen table. John never brought it up. It did not escape the detective's notice, however, that John started preparing significantly more finger foods. 

Predictably, perhaps, something so blissful was not meant to be enjoyed for long. Two weeks later, Sherlock leapt from the rooftop at Bart's, to protect his friends while he hunted his hunters. It was the farthest thing from his mind, at that moment, that in the life he was taking on, there would be no John to feed him, or remind him to sleep, or stop him from putting himself in danger, or rifle through his belongings to search for needles. In the two long, lonely years that followed, he went hungry without noticing, and suits grew too loose on his thin frame as flesh that had been so lovingly cultivated dwindled away again. 

When he was finally able to show back up on the doorstep of 221B, John was, of course, very angry. Sherlock expected him to be, but he thought that when he apologized and rationally explained the situation, life would go back to normal, the way it had been before. Having never been proficient (or, for that matter, even interested) in the emotions of normal people, he was grossly unprepared for dealing with John's hurt. He hadn't expected it, he didn't understand it, and he certainly had no idea how to alleviate it. 

It wasn't in John's nature to refuse the role of caregiver, however, so in spite of his general irritability and his apparent desire to avoid speaking to Sherlock as much as possible, John quickly fell back into the routine of cooking for two. Even in that, though, the doctor couldn't hide his lingering anger. Sherlock had to force himself not to flinch whenever John slammed a plate down next to his elbow as he experimented at the kitchen table or worked at his desk. Not knowing how to voice his appreciation for even that much of John's attention, Sherlock tried his best not to ignore meals when they were offered, but years of habit were difficult to overcome, and more often than not, Sherlock broke out of some reverie to find that a plate of food had hours before gone cold and soggy next to him. And John steadfastly refused to feed him. 

Weeks became months since Sherlock's return, and all other aspects of life more or less settled back into the familiar, comfortable cycle of cases and experiments and boredom. John accompanied Sherlock on cases, exclaimed at his brilliance, and scolded him for his messy (sometimes flammable and/or toxic) experiments, and Mrs. Hudson fretted over how thin Sherlock was and how much damage he caused to the flat. Lestrade and Mycroft, though, now that was something new and different. Sherlock refused to think about it, as he could scarcely afford for his stomach to violently reject the few meals he remembered to eat. 

After four months of pacing the floor at night, tormenting the strings of his violin, Sherlock thought the remaining distance between himself and John would drive him mad in a way that years of hiding and enforced solitude hadn't been able to. It galled him to think that he might be reduced to begging, particularly for something so seemingly trivial as the touch of a former army doctor's fingertips, but he had waited _two years_ already and to have John so close and refusing him was an exquisitely unbearable form of torture. 

In the end, it was less that he chose to beg, and more that he broke. 

As they had done countless times before, they stopped to have dinner on the way home after a case, but while John tucked in, Sherlock poked listlessly at his fettuccine Romano, scooting his pasta from one side of the plate to the other. John, oblivious, carried on between bites about how clever Sherlock had been, and for once in his life, Sherlock really didn't care how clever anyone thought he had been. His fork slipped out of his fingers and rang against the plate, pausing John mid-sentence. Sherlock saw him glance up, saw his facial expression switch like a lamp into the assessing concern of Doctor John Watson. 

"Sherlock? All right?” John set his own fork aside and turned his full attention on the detective next to him. 

Sherlock felt as though he were in a daze as he forced himself to meet John's eyes. “John, will you-” he felt his mouth forming the words, and his mind screamed at him to pull them back, because John was still angry with him, and they were in public, and they never did this in public, and it was something they had never even talked about anyway, and John might not like hearing Sherlock say it aloud, and John would say no and possibly get even more angry with Sherlock for even thinking he had any right to come out and ask and- “Please, will you feed me?” 

John held his gaze for what felt like interminably long seconds, before looking back down at his plate and taking up his fork again. “Let me finish eating first.” 

All of the breath rushed from Sherlock's lungs in a profound sigh of relief, but his body was tense, wound tight with anticipation. His fingers twisted into the white tablecloth, clutching at the smooth fabric as he impatiently watched John finish his meal, and damn it, he was certain John was eating as slowly as humanly possible, just to toy with him. 

Finally, though, John set his fork aside, and moved his chair a little closer to Sherlock, letting their knees brush under the table, and Sherlock had to force himself not to leap out of his seat at just the warm pressure of John's knee against his own. And then, John was winding pasta around Sherlock's fork and raising it to Sherlock's trembling lips, and Sherlock was certain that he had never tasted such perfect fettuccine Romano in his life. He moaned softly, and John chuckled next to him. 

“Relax,” John commanded in a low voice, his free hand dropping to Sherlock's knee under the table and giving a gentle squeeze. 

Another bite, and Sherlock choked back another moan and squirmed in his chair. He risked a glance from the food in front of him to John's face, and John was watching him with a knowing look. Under the table, Sherlock felt a firm hand sliding up the inside of his thigh and brushing over the crotch of his trousers. As he felt his hips press forward of their own volition, seeking the pressure of John's hand, Sherlock's eyes flickered quickly around the restaurant, taking in the many occupied tables around them, and he didn't care, but this was the sort of thing that John most certainly did care about. 

The doctor didn't seem to be overly bothered at the moment, however. The hint of a self-satisfied smile teased at the corners of John's mouth as he fed Sherlock with one hand, and stroked him through his trousers with the other, under the cover of the tablecloth, shushing him occasionally when the detective failed to stifle a groan of pure, hedonistic enjoyment. 

The contents of Sherlock's plate dwindled and the hand beneath the table picked up its pace, leaving Sherlock clinging to the tablecloth for dear life and gulping for air as he forced his hips not to move too much and give them away. His eyes fluttered closed as John fed him the final bite, and he closed his mouth on a soft, strangled cry as he came in his trousers. When he was next conscious of anything around him, he had still not swallowed his food, and John's hand was gone, now occupied with paying their bill. Sherlock swallowed slowly and rose, pulling his coat closed around him. He must have looked as dazed and unsteady as he felt, because John took him by the elbow and guided him out of the restaurant, and didn't let go of him until they arrived back at Baker Street. 

John closed the door to the flat behind them as Sherlock shed his coat, and when the doctor turned around, Sherlock was already pressing him to the door and sinking to his knees before him. Above his head, Sherlock heard the doctor huff out a sound of surprise as long fingers made quick work of unfastening jeans and tugging them down around hips. As Sherlock's lips wrapped around John's length and slid along smooth, hot skin, he felt the doctor's sure fingers sink into his hair and tangle there. Sherlock could hear John chanting his name under his breath, and groaned deeply in response, laving the slick flesh in his mouth worshipfully with his tongue. The frantic desperation of long-anticipated connection ensured that the whole thing was over in mere minutes, with John's inarticulate shout of ecstasy ringing through the sitting room as he came in Sherlock's mouth and the detective swallowed him down and then drew off of him, panting for breath. John slumped against the door, fingers still tangled in Sherlock's dishevelled hair, and Sherlock nuzzled his face against the overheated skin of John's hip. 

“John, I'm sorry,” Sherlock choked out in a hoarse sob, “I'm so sorry.” 

Fingers tightened momentarily in Sherlock's hair, then slid away, reaching down to haul the detective up by his shoulders instead. “Hush,” John silenced him, turning him to push him down the hallway to his bedroom. “Let's get you cleaned up and changed and put to bed. If you promise you'll sleep at least six hours, I'll give you a nice, big breakfast in the morning. You're much too thin; people will think I don't take care of you.”

* * *

 


End file.
